


it's hard to be anywhere these days (when all i want is you)

by The_Blonde



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Police, M/M, Mutual Pining, Organized Crime, Secret Identity (sort of), Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25614979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Blonde/pseuds/The_Blonde
Summary: "Ben should have spoken to Callum four weeks ago. He’s written a list of opening lines (all Jay approved because apparently Jay knows what Ben’s like andyou’ll scare him off. I remember what you said to those guys about the big pinas), saved them in his phone so they’d be ready at hand for when he “accidentally” bumps into Callum, and he shouldn’t be struggling with it, really he shouldn’t. Delivering chat-up lines to strangers is one of his few talents. Except Callum has never felt like a stranger, not from the moment his photo was pinned to the board behind Ben’s desk. Ben has been staring at that photo for weeks, and seeing Callum now in real life, wandering around the greyness of the Square, makes Ben want to catch him and take him home (like a butterfly in a jar, to be kept safe and far away from anything that might harm him). Not that it would work. Ben should never be trusted with fragile things."Or: a role reversal where Ben is a police officer and Callum is involved in his current case. Some things are different, a lot is the same.
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell
Comments: 16
Kudos: 38





	it's hard to be anywhere these days (when all i want is you)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from "this is me trying" by Taylor Swift. Again, a song that could have been written about Ben Mitchell.
> 
> I feel any Ballum fic I ever write is going to be dedicated to Kay and Rachel so here I go again; for Kay and Rachel, who listen to me, encourage me, and generally bring a lot of joy into my life <3 
> 
> Huge thanks also to everyone who read and left kudos/comments on my last fic! Writing in a new fandom is a scary thing but you're all very kind and welcoming, thank you!

Ben should have spoken to Callum four weeks ago. He’s written a list of opening lines (all Jay approved because apparently Jay knows what Ben’s like and _you’ll scare him off. I remember what you said to those guys about the big pinas_ ), saved them in his phone so they’d be ready at hand for when he “accidentally” bumps into Callum, and he shouldn’t be struggling with it, really he shouldn’t. Delivering chat-up lines to strangers is one of his few talents. Except Callum has never felt like a stranger, not from the moment his photo was pinned to the board behind Ben’s desk. Ben has been staring at that photo for weeks, and seeing Callum now in real life, wandering around the greyness of the Square, makes Ben want to catch him and take him home (like a butterfly in a jar, to be kept safe and far away from anything that might harm him). Not that it would work. Ben should never be trusted with fragile things.

\---

Ben thinks, at this point, that he could pick Callum out of a crowd from ten miles away, or still be able to find him in a group of thousands. He and Callum could be dropped onto different stars in different universes and Ben would still be able to locate him. He could take an exam on Callum, would pass with flying colours, he’s done all the required reading. He could write an extra credit essay on the various jackets in Callum’s wardrobe and which one is Ben’s favourite (answer: the green bomber, always), could give a speech on the exact way his fringe falls over his forehead when he hasn’t styled his hair right, he could teach a class on his hands, how he flexes his fingers when he’s stressed, the unsure way he smiles at his neighbours, the slightly stooped way that he walks, like he’s trying to look smaller than he is. Ben could -

“Bit creepy,” Jay says. “Ain’t it?”

“It’s our job,” Ben replies. “Noticing the details.”

“ _I’m_ doing our job.” Jay holds up his notebook. Ben hates that notebook, it represents a self-discipline that he doesn’t possess but that Jay has in spades. He sometimes tells Jay _my notes are up here_ and taps his forehead before Jay eventually just sighs and lets Ben copy his. “ _I’m_ doing the actual tailing. I’ve been doing it the entire time. You’re just staring longingly at him from a distance. When you should have been _speaking_ to him weeks ago.”

Ben repeats, “Longingly?”

“Yeah. _Longingly_.” Jay draws the word out, stirs his tea clockwise and then counter-clockwise. “Which I think is against some kind of code of practice, being into criminals. Unless that’s the real reason why you joined the force in the first place.”

Jay knows why Ben joined the force. And it’s not the _I just wanted to look hot in the uniform_ reason that he tells everyone else. “I didn’t sign any code. And he’s not a criminal, that’s the point.”

“He’s a criminal by association,” Jay says, not for the first time, like Ben needs to be reminded. Though it’s fair, Ben occasionally forgets why they’re here, or likes to pretend that something completely different is happening. “Not that he does much associating with anyone.” 

One of Ben’s essays (or maybe more of a thesis, a postgrad assignment) would be on the solitary way that Callum Highway lives his life. It seems odd, for someone apparently so kind, who has (by Jay’s count) helped eleven old ladies cross various streets in the five weeks that they’ve been observing him. Callum exists in a carefully planned way, every page of Jay’s notebook is the same, each copied onto the other. The exact layout of Callum’s week. He leaves his flat at the same time in the morning, he jogs the same route around the Square in the same outfits, he goes to the same cafe and orders the same coffee, on Thursday afternoons he goes into The Vic and has two pints. On Wednesdays he buys the same items (pasta, beers, chicken, only ever enough for one) from the Minute Mart, placing them into bags in the same methodical manner every time. 

He speaks only when other people speak to him or when he really can’t avoid it, and then his voice is quiet, almost whispered. No one ever visits his flat. Ben has never seen him use or even look at his phone. He doesn’t appear to have a job. His flat is above an undertakers and, sometimes, if there are sad looking relatives standing around outside Callum will stop to talk to them, place a hand to their elbow and murmur something that must be reassuring, given the brightening expression on their faces. The cashier in the Minute Mart calls him a “lovely boy” and he flushes right to the tips of his ears. Sometimes a hopeful person will try and take the empty chair opposite him in The Vic or the cafe and he will politely say _sorry, I’m waiting for someone_ though he never is. No one ever arrives. 

“You ever think we’ve got the wrong person?” Jay continues to stir a whirlpool into his tea. “That he’s just like a distant cousin that they’ve forgotten about? That _everyone’s_ forgotten about?”

“He’s the right person,” Ben replies, more confident than he feels. “He’s just trying not to draw attention to himself. We don’t know anything about him for definite. He probably hates his dad.”

“Well, you’d be an expert on that.”

The cafe that they’re in is claustrophobic, too many tables and chairs for the space. The whole Square feels the same, like it’s too small for the people and drama that it contains. Ben and Jay have only been here a few weeks, in a rented flat above a laundrette, again too cramped for them both (Ben is Too Much and no matter where he is it manages to be in Jay’s way), and Ben already wants to leave. It’s suffocating. Everyone keeps staring at them, waiting to be introduced, as if he and Jay are new cast members who have wandered onto a set without a proper storyline or an opening line of dialogue. Ben leaves all of that to Jay, who is always more polite, always better with people ( _it’s not hard to be better with people than you_ Jay says. _Try and look more approachable, you can do that, right?_ )

“We haven’t learnt anything about him.” Jay uses his free hand to flip through the pages of his notebook. “Nothing useful anyway. Just that he has a lot of thoughts on chicken pasta and likes being by himself.” He drains his tea, raises an eyebrow. “You have a lot in common actually.”

“I don’t have any strong thoughts on chicken pasta.”

“Not _that_ , the second thing. And obviously other things too.” Ben huffs and Jay rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean. I just - it’s making me sad. Isn’t it making you sad?”

Ben leans back in his chair, and lies. “No.”

Ben is a loner by choice (with a few exceptions), he doesn’t crave anything more (or does he? Maybe he did once), but something, _everything_ , about Callum and the almost secret way he lives his life catches in the place where his heart used to be.

\---

When Ben first saw Callum he was pinned (or his photo was at least) to a board behind Jay’s desk. A long red line connected him to his brother (Stuart) and his father (Jonno). Stuart and Jonno are both vaguely terrifying, in the way that you can tell there’s something going on beneath the surface, a switch or a catch that’s always on the verge of coming loose. They were in a triangle, of which Jonno was the top point and Stuart the bottom left corner. Callum was bottom right, and the sweetness of his face in comparison to Stuart had made Ben, seeing him for the first time, say, “You put the wrong photo on the board” and touch his finger to Callum’s cheek. “Who’s this?”

Jack said, “That’s the younger brother.” When Ben had looked again, the line connecting Callum to his dad and brother was jagged (like a lighting bolt) to indicate that Callum could be split away, that his little corner could be separated. A person that they could rescue. “He’s soft,” Jack added. “The weak link in the family.”

Ben, having long been the weak link in his own family, looked deep into the blue of Callum’s eyes. “I don’t think that’s fair. You can’t be soft with a dad like that.”

“You would know.”

Jack doesn’t like Ben. The feeling is mutual. Ben hates Jack’s pinstriped suits and his holier-than-thou attitude as much as Jack hates Ben’s sassiness and poor work ethic. And yet Ben knows that it was Jack who had been the deciding vote following his terrible police assessment. He’s only here because of Jack. Ben doesn’t kid himself that it’s because Jack sees potential in him, or thinks he’ll make a good copper at some point, Ben is here because everyone thinks eventually that he’ll give up some secrets about his family. All of the insider gossip on the Mitchells. Hopefully starting with his dad’s current location. People sometimes try to make casual conversation with him and drop in _heard anything from your dad recently? What’s he up to?_ which Ben always ignores. 

It’s too shameful, too sad, for Ben to admit that he doesn’t even _know_ his dad’s current location. Or Louise’s. If there was a Mitchell triangle on a board, he wouldn’t be connected to anyone. His dad probably would have personally erased any lines connecting them to Ben. His photo would be marooned to the side, an island all of his own. Not that the Mitchell Family could be contained in a triangle, it would be more like a Mitchell octagon, links and branches that Ben has never been able to keep track of. 

“We don’t know anything about him,” Jack continued. He tapped his fist, hard, on the board above Callum’s head and Ben had wanted to push his hand away. “Callum. But he might be easiest to get to.” 

“To _get_ to?” 

“He looks like he’d talk. That’s what I mean.”

Ben disagreed (and still does). There’s a stubbornness underneath Callum’s expression, a certain set to his jaw, that indicates that he wouldn’t talk at all. He looks more like someone who has spent most of his life staying quiet. 

“Shame we can’t get him to talk to _you_. You’d find loads to talk about,” Jack said, and then frowned. Jack gets ideas very slowly, in a way that you can almost see the various cogs and machinery of his brain working before they click into place. Ben waited for it to finally land and for Jack to add, “We could do something with that.”

Ben sighed. Jack’s fist stayed tapping the board, getting ever closer to Callum’s photo. Ben, again, had wanted to reach out and say _don’t touch him_. “You want us to bond over our messed up families?” 

“I want you to _bond_ over your fathers and their organised crime habits.”

“How am I meant to drop that into casual conversation exactly?”

“I don’t know.” Jack’s hand finally stopped moving.

\---

Ben doesn’t go undercover. He has in the past, but it’s always gone badly. On one occasion, _extremely_ badly. He’s too conspicuous and, according to Jay, has a “really weird walk” that he can’t disguise. He reacts to everything and is too emotive. He says the wrong thing almost all the time. And yet, somehow, everyone had decided that this one was a great idea. _Shared family backgrounds_ and all that. _Two working class lads_ Jack had said. _From broken homes_. Ben laughed because his home was never _broken_ , it just never fully existed in the first place.

Jay’s family tree, if it was drawn on a board, would just be himself. He is the last remaining branch of the Browns, a fact that makes him look for family in almost everyone he meets (a brother, a father figure, several mothers in the work canteen who give him extra helpings at lunch). Ben has always been amazed that he’s included in that list. People don’t tend to seek Ben out, or to make an effort with him. Jay sometimes says _well, I can’t get rid of you now, can I?_ , a joke that is very much not a joke. 

Jay says, “I was teasing you. About the longing. You don’t look longing at all, just sort of frowny.” He creases his forehead and squints his eyes. “You know, like your face usually does.”

“Thanks.”

“I haven’t written it in the notes. I just write that me and PC Mitchell are still planning how to approach the subject. Which, I mean, we’ve been _planning_ for weeks now, but -”

“Timing hasn’t been right.”

Jay, politely, doesn’t mention the numerous occasions where the timing has been perfect. The empty chairs opposite Callum at the Vic. The potential to run into him on one of his morning jogs. Reaching for the same pasta at the Minute Mart. Ben could stand outside the undertakers looking sad for five minutes and, based on observation, Callum would eventually appear to say something kind (what would that achieve? Ben isn’t used to kindness) and Ben could reply with a line from the carefully curated notes on his phone and - then what. They haven’t moved past that point, into what happens next. 

Ben had asked Jack if it was a honey trap, he’s heard about those, though they’re usually glamorous Eastern European secret agents not twentysomething East End boys with too many scars (inward and outward). Jack laughed and said _really, you?_ and then _just be his friend. You can do that, can’t you? Make friends?_. Ben had replied _yeah, sure, I have loads of friends_ and gestured to Jay. _There they are_. 

“Maybe you should be the one to talk to him,” Ben suggests. 

“We wouldn’t have anything to talk about.”

“You’d find something.”

“No,” Jay says. “The point is to get info about his dad by bonding over, you know -” he waves his hand through the air. “Shared experiences. I don’t have that. I haven’t _had_ a dad since I was a kid.”

“You could argue that I’ve never had a dad at all.” 

Jay tilts his head to the side. “They’ll take us off the job if we don’t do something soon. If you don’t do something soon. You know that.”

“I don’t know why everyone’s so convinced that he’s going to want to keep speaking to me. I’m not great with second or third conversations.”

“Or first ones, apparently.”

\---

Callum spends most of his lonely drinks at The Vic either tracing the wood of the table with his thumb or methodically removing the label from his bottle in one smooth panel. He fidgets a lot, Ben’s noticed, on the rare moments he speaks to someone his hands move around in a way that’s too emotive for the softness of his voice (to the people outside the undertakers he puts his palm to his heart, to the cashier in the Minute Mart he waves, clasps and unclasps his fingers). On this particular Thursday there’s a small boy, maybe a year or two younger than Lexi, weaving between the stools and tables. He smiles at Callum and Callum winks at him with both eyes. Ben almost wants that to be his opening line: _why do you try to wink when you know you can’t_ but as with all the other opening lines it never makes it out of Ben’s mouth.

Ben has been in the Vic at the same time as Callum, for exactly the same duration of time as Callum, for five weeks. Five Thursdays. Callum has never noticed him. Ben’s ego is fragile enough to take that as an insult, but Callum doesn’t seem a naturally observant person. Again, odd, growing up with a father involved in organised crime should make you the opposite. It’s made Ben the opposite. He’s always looking over his shoulder, listening for footsteps, anticipating the moment someone’s mood will change, when kindness turns into something else. When people leave. Callum never even glances up.

The boy comes to a skidding stop next to Ben and smiles. Ben winks (properly, sorry Callum) and immediately gets a text from Jay. His message tone is loud, deliberately on the highest volume setting in the hope of getting Callum to look up. He does not. 

Jay says _any change?_

Ben replies _No. The same_

Jay sends a sad face, the one with a single blue tear. Ben doesn’t know if this is directed at him or Callum. _BTW Lola says you need to have Lexi tomorrow_.

Ben goes to the bar for another drink, purposefully at the side nearest Callum, and stands too close to Callum’s table (far too close, in a way that anyone else would tell him to move). Callum peels what’s left of his label, it comes off in a perfect square stuck to his index finger. Ben leans to the side and bumps the table with his hip. Callum does not look up. 

Ben isn’t really used to not gaining someone’s attention when he wants it, he’s good at fully inserting himself into someone else’s space, and this would usually be the moment where he hits the table again, harder, enough to spill what’s left of Callum’s beer, to say something flirtatious and offer to buy him another, but he doesn’t. He _can’t_.

His emotions towards Callum are complicated, he knows that. Jay’s been saying it since the beginning because Ben’s been _feeling_ it since the beginning. Ben tries to tell himself it’s simple protectiveness, that’s what he’s supposed to feel, isn’t that why he joined the police? ( _No_ , some traitorous part of him corrects. _That’s not why you joined the police. You know why you joined the police_). It’s protectiveness mixed with sympathy all intertwined with something else. A something else of which Callum is the centre.

\---

Jay had gotten really drunk at The Vic, the first night here, when the Square had seemed _horrifying_ in its closeness. There’s still no need for everyone to be so interconnected (they should put that up at work, the family tree of Albert Square. There probably wouldn’t be a board big enough to contain it). Jay is a lightweight and an emotional drunk. Ben has the Mitchell constitution, which consists of both a self-destructive need to drink and alcohol having very little effect.

Jay hiccuped and said, “I hate it here.” 

“We just got here.”

“I can still hate it. Everyone’s looking at us. Are you meant to stand up and give a speech introducing yourself to people? Is this _school_?”

“I don’t know.” Ben leaned in, whispered in Jay’s ear. “Also probably not a great idea seeing that we’re here undercover.”

“I feel like everyone’s worked that out. I went to the shop earlier and that woman -” Jay pointed to one of the barmaids, stern faced and with a severe haircut. “She asked me what I was doing here. I was in the _shop_ , what else would I be doing?”

“It’s a small place.”

“Well, it’s not very welcoming.” Jay tried to catch Ben in his slightly wavering gaze. “You probably prefer that though. You wouldn’t know what to do if everyone was friendly.”

Ben forced out a laugh. “Probably.”

“Hey.” Jay patted at the side of his face. “Hey. Promise me something.”

“It depends.”

“Don’t try and save him because you think you can’t be saved.” Jay kept one hand on Ben’s cheek. “I don’t -”

“What do I need saving from exactly?”

Jay hiccuped again. “I dunno. From yourself.”

\---

The barmaid with the stern face and haircut is called Shirley (he’s heard the others shouting to her enough to have worked that out). She serves Ben his second drink in a suspicious way, examines the money he hands her like she’s expecting it to be fake. “You and your brother are still around then?”

Ben always gets a small twinge of happiness when Jay describes them as brothers. He smiles. “Yeah.”

“He said you were looking for work.”

The _work_ is, of course, right behind him, examining the exact pattern of wood grain in a tabletop, but Ben shrugs and says, “Trying to.”

“I might have something. If either of you has any experience with cars.”

Ben wonders if being his dad’s getaway driver for most of his teenage years, or doing admin in the garage his dad owned as a money laundering front, counts as _experience with cars_. “A bit.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Ben says, “Thanks,” and takes the beer. He doesn’t jolt Callum’s table again as he walks back to his seat, it seems too obvious (when Ben has never normally cared about being obvious), and too much like a rejection. Doing these things for Callum to never look up. It’s like always dropping breadcrumbs, a trail that Callum never follows, one that leads directly to Ben.

_You got the message about Lexi?_

_Yeah. She knows we’re on a job though, right?_

The _job_ folds his beer label into a neat square and then, suddenly, leans forward and covers his forehead with his hand. Ben blinks. Callum does not show emotion. His face is always the same serene expression as his photo. Now he looks like someone has just given him terrible news. Ben looks around, fully prepared to go after whoever that was, but of course there’s no one. The terrible news must have come from Callum’s own head. He takes a very small shuddering breath, one that Ben only hears because he was listening out for it. _What is it_ he wants to say. _What’s wrong?_ He wants to say _who did this?_ because he knows, without hesitation, that he would hunt that person down, wherever they were.

Callum flexes the fingers on his free hand and seems to gather the pieces of himself back together. He makes a soft huffing noise: it sounds exasperated (at himself?) and sad (for himself?) And then he looks at Ben.

Ben, having prepared for the potential ways in which Callum might notice him, didn’t expect that it would be like this: frozen in place wearing his worst coat and with a beer bottle halfway to his mouth. 

Callum runs the hand that was on his forehead down his face. It gives the impression that he’s revealing himself to Ben, removing a mask in slow stages. Ben feels himself do the same thing, without even thinking about it, passes his hand from his forehead to his chin. Callum doesn’t smile, not exactly, but the line of his mouth softens a little. The crease in his cheek that Ben had assumed (correctly, it turns out) was a dimple deepens. 

Callum’s face is hopeful and this is the point where Ben should say something. Anything from the list, _anything_. The list is casual, light, designed to start a conversation, to begin a friendship ( _Just be his friend. You can do that, can’t you?_ ). But nothing on the list is anything that he wants to say. He can’t think of a single word or phrase in the English language that deserves to be the first thing he says to Callum. He hesitates and Callum’s expression closes down. Ben thinks _come back_ even though neither of them have gone anywhere. _No, I had something to say_.

Callum is back to blank neutrality. He finishes his second beer and, not a third, never a third, and leaves without looking at anyone. 

Jay replies to say _of course_ and Ben initially thinks he means _of course you messed that up_ rather than _of course Lola knows you’re on a job_.

He phones him instead. “You’ve got experience with cars, right?”

Jay leaves a long pause before he says, “What?”

“You were telling people we were looking for work.”

“What else was I meant to say?”

“Well, I found you work. Possibly. That barmaid who scared you in the shop -”

“She didn’t _scare_ me.”

“- says that she might know someone.”

Jay, very slowly, repeats, “Experience with cars. Sounds legit.”

“She probably just owns a garage or something.”

“Or something,” Jay echoes. 

“And I, uh, saw Callum.”

Jay waits for whatever the follow-up sentence must be, realises there isn’t one, and says, “Okay? We’ve been seeing him for weeks now.”

“No, I mean I saw him.”

“Yeah, that’s the whole point.”

“I mean for real, I mean without the -” Ben stops. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I mean.”

\---

Callum’s file is small. Ben knows that _his_ file, wherever it is, is much bigger, but that’s only because Callum never seems to have fallen into the same trap of trying to please his dad that Ben did. Over and over until it wasn’t even a trap anymore and his dad didn’t try to hide what he was doing, but Ben didn’t either. His dad only ever seemed to love him from the passenger seat of a car Ben was driving (at speed, away from any number of crimes), or would only ever smile when Ben was handing him stolen goods. Ben had chased that feeling for his entire life, into places he should never have gone, lost pieces of himself he would never get back.

Callum does not appear to have done the same, or tried to stay out of trouble while his brother rushed right into it. There’s a lot of mentions of Callum being the one to collect Stuart from the station or arriving on the scene to calm Stuart down. He’s never involved with his dad (who sounds, frankly, unhinged in a way that Ben’s dad never has been), there’s one note of him being asked to be a reference for his dad’s bail hearing and him refusing. A lot of details about Jonno are redacted, large stripes of black through most of it. The details of Callum himself are fleeting and usually attached to notes about Stuart: _Mr C Highway was calm and measured in comparison to Mr S Highway. Mr C Highway was extremely apologetic for the damage caused. Mr C Highway became emotional when told Mr S Highway would likely be incarcerated_. 

There are a few loose pages at the back of the file which detail each of Callum’s three failed police assessments. Ben hasn’t read those, they seem too personal, though he desperately wants to. No one has brought that up as a further thing that he and Callum have in common, but the difference seems to be that Callum wanted to join. Callum had tried three times, Ben would never have come back after the first. Callum, most likely, has many rose-tinted and idealised reasons for joining the police. Ben’s reasons were purely selfish and continued to be so (until it all went wrong).

 _Mr C Highway asked if anything could be done to help Mr S Highway. Mr C Highway has telephoned station on numerous occasions to ask about Mr S Highway’s wellbeing_. 

Where is Stuart now? Ben knows he was in prison but recently released, _Mr C Highway requested a visitor’s pass for each week that Mr S Highway was held in HMP_ , but Stuart now doesn’t feature in Callum’s timetable. It seems odd, from a younger brother who apparently visited him every week, who cared enough about him to show up to every crime, hearing, trial, who tried to calm him down even though (as far as Ben can see) Stuart cannot be calmed down. Again there are heavy dark lines through anything relating to his crimes but Ben had seen him on the board. Had looked directly into his eyes and recognised some darkness there. 

Ben wonders what his life may have been, with a brother like Callum instead of a sister like Louise or a kid brother like Denny. Which isn’t to say that he hates either of them, but just that he was always aware of his dad loving them more and so Denny and Louise were aware of it too. Were always sure of their individual places in the pecking order. When Louise was a baby Ben had been convinced that his dad and Lisa had actually named her Princess, as that was all she was ever called. The heir to the throne. His dad would carry her around in the crook of his elbow, _my princess_ , would throw his arm around Denny’s shoulders, _my boy_ , would blink at Ben as if seeing him from a distance, _Ben_. Maybe things would have been different, with a Callum. Not that Ben in any way wants to think of Callum as a brother, shouldn’t think of Callum as anything at all, but - no one had ever _become emotional_ for Ben.

He was once held in a police cell for four days before one of the parole officers, mystified by everyone’s lack of interest, had eventually let him walk out (“I thought your dad had a team of solicitors on speed dial?”) and when he got home no one had even noticed he’d been gone. Louise went missing for half a day, and his dad had everyone out looking, an entire convoy of cars, stopped all the businesses, would have razed London to the ground, and she’d only made it to Peckham. 

Ben doesn’t hate Louise, he has never hated Louise and he’s fairly sure she’s at least ambivalent to him, but he was jealous of her. Horribly jealous. The way she caught their dad’s attention and held it, always. 

Ben has never been able to hold anyone’s attention. He’s great for an interested glance across a dingy bar (which may last into the early hours of the next morning), or moments of exasperation or annoyance, having eyes rolled at him from the other side of desks in work whenever he makes jokes that don’t land right, and maybe people feel sorry for him sometimes, but getting attention and keeping it, like a genuine interest, like a person who might want to see him again (anywhere, everywhere), like a person running their hand across their face revealing a real expression, that never happens. Or, not usually.

\---

“So, you didn’t speak to him,” Jay states, back at his notes. “He looked right at you, and you didn’t say anything.”

“It wasn’t the right time.”

“Is it ever going to be? It’s not a film, the rest of the world isn’t gonna melt away and leave just the two of you, there’s not gonna be _music_ or -”

“It’s not like that,” Ben says. “I don’t - it’s not that. I don’t feel -”

“Just memorising his file because you take your job seriously then?”

“I haven’t memorised his file,” Ben lies. “I told you, I just think it’s strange that the brother’s never around.” 

“We’re not here to help him. I told you that, you should know that. We’re here to get information out of him. And we can only do that with you _talking_ to him.”

“What if I just don’t do it?” Ben leans forward, tries to sound convincing. “We could say that I tried and it didn’t work, that he’s too shy or something, and we could go back and -”

“They’ll send someone else,” Jay says. “He’s the only link. They’d send in Jack or Gray or any of that lot. Someone who wouldn’t take their time with him as much as you are. Do you want that?”

Ben, instantly, possessively, says, “No.” 

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I think he’s sorta made a life for himself here.” Jay wrinkles his nose, like the idea of a life in the Square is a terrible idea. “Like, a quiet, _decent_ life, and what, I’m gonna rock up and start trying to get him to talk about his dad? Who he never even seemed to bother with that much? You’ve read his file -”

“Not as much as you.”

“ - I think he deserves to be left alone. I’m just gonna pull him back into something he’s obviously trying to get away from.”

Jay knocks his fist to Ben’s forehead. It’s light, but the intent is there. “You’re getting emotionally involved. Nothing’s happening to him, it never will, you’re just supposed to get close enough to find out if he knows anything about where his dad is. If he doesn’t then, great. We can leave and he can carry on with his weekly routine.”

“And if he does?”

“I suppose that’s when it gets complicated,” Jay replies, like it isn’t already.

\---

Lexi emerges from a taxi dressed as Cinderella. Ben holds out a hand and helps her step elegantly down onto the pavement, all layers of translucent blue tulle and a tiara that he thinks actually belongs to Jasmine (Ben knows his princesses).

He leans into the taxi’s backseat. “I said dress her in something plain.”

Lola beams at him. “That’s what she wanted to wear. And, I mean, of all your princess options that’s probably the best.”

“Tiara’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

Lexi says, “ _Daaaaaaaaad_.”

“She wants to go on the swings,” Lola says, passing him the bag that always accompanies Lexi, full of whatever she might need for any possibility the day might throw at her. Ben wishes that someone, somewhere, cared enough to put together a bag like that for him. It would make life easier. “I packed her a lunch but you’ll need to make her something afterwards. I won’t be late.” 

Ben swings the bag onto his shoulder. “Okay.”

“And I’m sorry. I know you’re on a job and I wouldn’t usually -”

“It’s fine.” Ben runs his hand over Lexi’s head. “I love seeing her, you know that.”

Lexi repeats, “ _Daaaaaaaddd_.” 

“Be good,” Lola tells her, just before Ben closes the door.

Lexi blinks up at him from under the tiara. “I’m always good.”

This is not strictly true. Ben says, “Of course you are,” and takes her hand in his. 

There was a time when being around Lexi used to terrify him. Not Lexi herself, but how she made him feel. She would hold his index finger in her entire tiny fist while she slept, he could almost see the fluttering of her heart beneath the layers of pink Lola would dress her in, and everything about her was so _small_ , so fragile, that all he could see was the various ways that something could happen to her. The accidental ways that Ben might mess her up. Lola, always more patient that he deserves, normally said _the world isn’t that scary a place. And you’re gonna be a good dad_ but Ben knows that it is and that he’ll try. He’s forever grateful that Lexi appears to have inherited Lola’s strength, and her self-belief. Nothing indimitates Lola and so very little indimitates Lexi. 

He sometimes tells Lola _I’m glad she doesn’t have much from me_ because, to his mind, Lexi has only got his eyes and his dancing ability. And Lola normally replies _uh, apart from your stubbornness and your need to always talk back you mean? Oh, and your nosiness_. 

Lexi proves the final point by pointing at every person they pass on the walk to the park. “Who’s that? Do you know them? Are they your friend? Do you want them to be your friend? What are they doing? Look, Dad, she’s waving, can I wave back? Who’s that? Dad, that man looks like Grandad. Dad, can I wave to him? Mum said I had to ask because you’re working and you might not - Dad, who’s that? How far are the - Dad, who’s _that_?”

The emphasis on the final _that_ makes Ben stop. “What?”

“Can I wave to him?”

Ben looks up and there’s Callum. Of course. It’s 10:30, that’s the time he always gets his coffee. He’s holding a cardboard cup and wearing the green bomber jacket, smiling down at Lexi in something like surprise. But then you don’t really expect to see a tiny Cinderella with the wrong tiara skipping around the Square.

It’s another genuine expression. Ben files it away. Not to the notes, not for anyone else to see, just for his memory. 

Lexi repeats, “Dad, can I wave to him?” even though Callum is right in front of them. 

After all the lists, all the build-up, the vetting, the Jay approval, the constant re-reading, the first thing that Ben says in Callum’s hearing is, “Yes.”

Lexi waves. The bracelets she has stacked up her arms all jangle together.

Callum waves back, the gentle way that he does to the ladies in the Minute Mart, fingers clasping and unclasping. The first thing that he says in Ben’s hearing turns out to be, “Hello.” His voice is soft, very soft, like he’s never raised it once in his life. 

Lexi looks at Ben. “Dad, can I say hello back?”

Ben says, “Yes,” again. Twice now, the only words Callum has heard him say.

Lexi says, “Hello,” in an incredibly regal way, using both hands to spread out her waterfall skirt and drop into a curtsey. Ben almost laughs (okay, maybe she does get _some_ things from him after all). 

Callum nods, completely seriously, then folds himself onto one knee and bows. 

Lexi laughs, delighted, and claps her hands together. Callum smiles at her, pink in the curve of his cheeks, and Ben makes a small stifled noise that can only be some forgotten piece of his heart exploding. 

Callum looks up at him and Ben isn’t expecting the pull in his chest that he feels (not romantic as such, but more an insistent tug. A _look at this_ ). It’s ridiculous. He’s said two words and they were both _yes_. Callum’s just a person he read about in a file, looked at on a board, stared at in a pub, he shouldn’t be feeling anything. 

Some form of recognition floods the blue of Callum’s eyes and Ben says, “We should be getting to the park,” while not looking at Lexi at all and then, finally, he addresses Callum directly. “She wants to go on the swings.”

“Because they’re the best,” Lexi clarifies.

Callum uncurls to his normal height. He says, “Have a good day,” to Lexi. “I don’t know my princesses, sorry, I -”

“I’m Cinderella,” Lexi replies, more generous than she usually is to people who can’t identify her outfit choices. 

Callum smiles again. “Of course. Have a good day Cinderella.” Ben has to lean forward a little to hear him, wonders if he speaks quietly to avoid being heard. “And Cinderella’s dad.”

Ben, forgetting completely where he is and what he’s meant to be doing, says, “It’s Ben.”

Lexi, who knows that jobs mean fake names and not speaking to people unless Ben says it’s okay, gasps.

Callum says, “Oh. Hi Ben,” and holds his hand out. 

Ben shakes it. “Hi Callum.”

Callum blinks. “I -”

Lexi says, “ _Daaaaaaadd_.”

“ _Okay_ ,” Ben says. “Okay. I should - it was nice to -” There’s a way to end that sentence but he’s forgotten every word that he’s ever said. 

“Meet me?” Callum suggests. 

“Yes. That.”

“It was nice to meet you. Both of you.” Callum drops another tiny bow to Lexi, a small incline of his head that she returns, and then he leaves, weaving through the Square back to his flat. Probably behind schedule. Ben watches him go. 

“Is he your friend?” Lexi asks.

“No,” Ben says. “Not really.”

“Do you _want_ him to be your friend?”

“That’s complicated.”

Lexi nods, like she fully understands the complications of adult relationships. “How did you know his name?”

“What?”

“You said hi Callum but he hadn’t said his name.”

Ben stops. One of the marker traders lets the roof of their stall slam shut. There’s an argument happening outside the Vic. A car backfires. It all suddenly becomes background noise. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” Lexi wrinkles her nose. “Do you want him to be your friend?”

“You already asked me that.” He thinks, wildly, of how exactly he's going to explain this to Jay.

“Yeah, but _do_ you?”

“Yes,” Ben says, helplessly. “I suppose I do.”

\---

Callum, on the board, had continued to gaze placidly out at his surroundings, at Ben, and Ben had looked back and maybe that had been the start of the whole thing. The whole mess. The turned down corners of Callum’s mouth, the hint of a dimple (a tiny crescent moon in his right cheek), the sad smudges at his eyes. The jagged red line to his father and brother. The file which was supposed to contain everything they’d learnt about Callum so far but actually contained nothing, like there was nothing to learn. Ben wondered, wonders, if that’s deliberate. Callum Highway: the bottom right of a triangle that Ben’s supposed to break him away from.

Ben had taken the first step and missed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- i’m on tumblr at leblonde and twitter at leblonde4, come say hi!


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